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Anti-militarism is today an unquestioned mainstay of anarchism. This book presents a systematic analysis of anarchist responses to the First World War. It examines the interventionist debate between Peter Kropotkin and Errico Malatesta which split the anarchist movement in 1914. The controversy revolved around conflicting interpretations of the shared ideas of internationalism and anti-militarism. The book analyses the debates conducted in European and American movements about class, nationalism, pacifism and cultural resistance. Just as Kropotkin's position was coherent with his anarchist beliefs, it was also a product of his rejection of the main assumptions of the peace politics of his day. Malatesta's dispute with Kropotkin provides a focus for the anti-interventionist campaigns he fought internationally. Contributions discuss the justness of war, non-violence and pacifism, anti-colonialism, pro-feminist perspectives on war and the potency of myths about the war and revolution for the reframing of radical politics in the 1920s and beyond. The collaboration between the Swiss-based anarchists and the Indian nationalists suggests that Bertoni's group was not impervious to collaboration with groups whose ideological tenets may have been in tension with the ideology of anarchism. During the First World War, American anarchists emphasised the positive, constructive aspects of revolutionary violence by aestheticising it as an outgrowth of individual creativity. Divisions about the war and the experience of being caught on the wrong side of the Bolshevik Revolution encouraged anarchists to reaffirm their deeply-held rejection of vanguard socialism and develop new strategies on anti-war activities.
6 ‘The bomb plot of Zurich’: Indian nationalism, Italian anarchism and the First World War1 Ole Birk Laursen In June 1919, the Indian nationalists Virendranath ‘Chatto’ Chattopadhyaya and Abdul Hafiz of the Berlin-based Indian Independence Committee (IIC) were on trial in Switzerland alongside a group of Swiss-based Italian anarchists led by Luigi Bertoni and Arcangelo Cavadini for their involvement in the so-called ‘bomb plot of Zurich’. The Attorney General of Switzerland accused Chatto and Hafiz of collaborating with Bertoni and Cavadini, and with the German
of £1,300 million. 3 The war also provided radical Indian nationalists with opportunities to use Britain’s difficulty as India’s opportunity, as Ireland had done in 1916 and as seen in the previous chapter with Subhas Chandra Bose. But other motivated radicals, who were perhaps not as ambitious as Bose and were resident in Europe during the war, would help the nationalist movement in their own way and at their
on The Indian Sociologist (IS hereafter), a radical anti-colonial journal created, edited and published by Krishnavarma from 1905– 14 and 1921–22 that, for a time, was an important mouthpiece of the early (pre-Gandhian) Indian nationalist movement’s extremist faction at the international level.2 I will argue that, in the pages of the IS, Krishnavarma developed an anti-colonialism that was deeply critical of the quietism of Indian liberalism (espoused by early Congress moderates), avoided the nativism of his fellow extremists, and resisted the romanticized
their gentry. In this, the missionaries had to steer a difficult course within a complex local politics, being careful not to alienate either the British authorities or the local Rajput rulers. Their task was further complicated from the 1920s onwards with, on the one hand, the emergence of a strong Indian nationalist movement and, on the other, a growing assertion by the Christian converts. We shall examine these
have to be treated with caution since enumeration was obviously so difficult, but relative proportions are none the less reasonably clear. Moreover the durbars of 1903 and 1911 were designed to demonstrate the order the British were able to impose on such vast assemblages and by extension suggest that the Indian nationalist movement under middle-class leadership had little chance of creating the kind of unity
precedents on which to draw in establishing a foreign policy for a postcolonial state. 5 Indian nationalists were understandably keen to distance themselves from British ways of conducting international relations – these were patently immoral, they argued, pointing to British acquisitiveness and belligerence. In any case, they were clearly unsuited to an economically poor and militarily weak state. 6 Indian history prior to the establishment of the Raj also offered little
British and later allowed Indian nationalists to exploit the raj. 2 Their longstanding presence in India meant that they were more indigenised than most Western religious orders and could draw upon many links with Indian intellectuals and educators. 3 From the seventeenth century onwards, these interactions had been so powerful that the Vatican had, at times, felt compelled to require the
Recent scholarship in political thought has closely examined the relationship between European political ideas and colonialism, particularly the ways in which canonical thinkers supported or opposed colonial practices. However, little attention has been given to the engagement of colonized political and intellectual actors with European ideas. This book demonstrates that a full reckoning of colonialism's effects requires attention to the ways in which colonized intellectuals reacted to, adopted, and transformed these ideas, and to the political projects that their reactions helped to shape. It presents acts of hybrid theorization from across the world, from figures within societies colonized by the British, French, and Spanish empires who sought an end to their colonial status or important modifications to it. The book examines John Stuart Mill's neglect of the Bengali reformer, Rammohun Roy. Exploring what transpired with this potential for intellectual influence across cultural borders during the course of Mill's intellectual career is an unfinished project. The Indian Sociologist is a radical anti- colonial journal created, edited and published by Shyamji Krishnavarma, was an important mouthpiece of the early (pre- Gandhian) Indian nationalist movement's extremist faction at the international level. Jotirao Govindrao Phule fought for Sudratisudras who were abased, maltreated, and reviled as slaves proportionally to the fierceness with which their native warrior ancestors had resisted outside invasion. The book also talks about the French revolutionary ideology in Saint- Domingue, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, liberal universalism, and Pedro Paterno's Filipino deployment of French Lamarckianism.
. While the Indian nationalists I deal with deliberately sought association with Irish republicans, and many of them visited Ireland at some stage, Gandhi did not. This study also throws further light on Irish republicanism in the inter-war period, a field in which quite a lot of work has, of late, been carried out. Recent studies have revealed fascinating facets of Irish republicanism, a movement